Week 6

I looked at some of the resources relating to Del.icio.us, played around with the site itself, looked on some of the bookmarks and created an account for myself. I put three bookmarks in it, with a tag for each.

This site is very useful when you want to access frequently used bookmarks and are away from your own computer and don't remember their URLs. Using other people's bookmarks could be handy also, but I would probably use Google instead and try to narrow my search terms. It all depends on what I am researching.

I looked at Technorati and discovered that tags are another name for keywords. Again, I might use it for some things and not for others. I am not particularly interested in other people's personal blogs, but might use the subject search capability for information on things I am interested in.

The articles on Web 2.0 reminded me of the realms of stuff I had to read while in library school -- dry and often pointing out the obvious. The one article I think really hit the nail on the head was "Away from the icebergs". BCPL has already done away with what he calls the "just in case" collection" of print materials physically on our shelves and is constantly adding online access to more and more things our patrons want.

Number 2 on the list is reliance on user education. We are making some strides here, but too many of our services require training -- or at least better explanation than we we offer on our online catalog. The new version is too sophisticated for most patrons. I think wikis are the name of the game when it come to providing a way for patrons to go beyond the simple title and/or author stage. We did a version of this with our paper pathfinders some years ago. Reader's advisory information and subject searches are on our new catalog, but librarians are better at using it for these purposes than the public.

Number 3 is doing away with the come to the library for service mentality. BCPL is working on this with things like enabling patrons to do renewals and reserves, look at our catalog, download audio books and use the online resources we offer from home. As the author points out, libraries are no longer the only game in town when people want information. We need to do it better than other sources, even if it is only telling them where to look. The new online registration for a temporary card is great.